that s what he wants to do at the time. final question. and this man was at the debate. his name is donald trump. so we wanted to devote most of our time to people who are at the debate. how many of you think donald trump hurt himself by not being a part of this debate, raise your hand please. one, two, three, four. how many of you think he helped himself by not being at the debate? most of you. why do you think he helped himself? this is. debra she is the leader of the young republicans here. the chapter here, in the iowa young republicans. tell you why? i think he helped himself just because he was not able to say anything bad. people were used against him in the general election. and he s able to kind of run off his record. and not worry about being seen as bombastic or something negative. thank you. debra and thank all of you for talking to us we really appreciate watching this with you. anderson, ramaswamy the winner among this group. okay thanks so much. back now with our p
like he has right now has ever been beat. now, anything can happen. but i think the proof they are watching ramaswamy, who is slogan after slipping after slogan, not a lot of depth there. maybe he feels that it is a campaign goes on, give him the benefit of the doubt. but the establishment posit politicians were so frustrated by him just like they were frustrated by donald trump in 2016. he was essentially trumps fill in tonight on that stage, and the reaction in the room tells you it is going to be very difficult to take the party away from donald trump. that is what every one of those candidates is trying to do, ramaswamy was his proxy tonight, and the crowd loved it. yeah, i agree with that. i would have to say that, you know, people ask beforehand was it a gamble for trump not to be there? i don t think it was a gamble, but if it was a gamble, he won big tonight, i think. because of what john said, he is in control of this race, and the only way that he can lose this race is if s
somebody who is unfamiliar to voters because a lot of attention because he is quick on his feet. he can perform in these kinds of settings and that is not a knock on him. pete buttigieg won the iowa caucus. slightly different level of volume. yeah. between buttigieg ramaswamy. i ve talked to both, and i can tell you for sure. huge difference in volume. but i say all of that to say, we can t count ramaswamy really playing a factor in this. at the end of the day. winning a primary, a republican primary, democratic primary you have to have a broad base of support. and it has to be deep and i do not see the depth from ramaswamy. at least not yet and when he gets to 15. let s just say he does rise. trump will come from next. you know trump spends all of his time on defense but if they ever perceive that desantis is fading in ramaswamy say is in the early second place. trump will come for him next
ramaswamy s opening statement. because he completely ignored it and went with what was clearly his prepared statement. first, let me just address a question that is on everybody s mind at home tonight. who the heck is this skinny guy with funny last name, and what is he doing in the middle of this debate stage? i ll tell you, i m not a politician, bret baier, you are right about that. i m an entrepreneur. my parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago, i have gone on to found a multi billion dollar companies. i did it while marrying my wife raising her two sons, following our faith and guide. that is the american dream. and i am genuinely worried that american dream will not exist for our two sons and their generation unless we do something about it. i do think that it s going to take an outsider. for a long time we had professional politicians in the republican party who have been running from something. now is our moment to start running to something. to our vision
asa hutchison was one of the few that brought it up on his own. i was very surprised that nikki haley also unprompted took some dings at the former president, saying she showed up like she came to play to run against donald trump. what i thought was interesting that we were talking about with vivek ramaswamy i wouldn t be surprised if you see among some of the america first die hard trump crowd an effort to draft him as a vp pick. do i think it s strategically wise? absolutely not. but there s a lot of alignment there, and to john s point, he showed up, basically, to fill the proxy of donald trump. i think there s a lot of overlap. and trump loves that, by the way. he s been boosting vivek, he s been praising him, and ramaswamy has been helping trump put a damper on desantis. every time ramaswamy goes up, desantis goes down a little bit, and that has been good for trump. he called on one of the greatest presidents of all-time tonight. i would be kind to him, as well. he s k